Month: June 2016

For me, this election has been very revealing and helpful. Here are some jumbled thoughts I wanted to share.

For starters, I’ve come across many new leftists whose work I’ve started following. I found most of them on twitter – it’s a useful medium if used correctly, I swear!

I’ve also largely given up on the Democratic party. I can no longer support a party that is so wedded to the very institutions that oppress us. I’ve been a D-voting independent since I turned 18, but voting blue gets harder and harder every election.

I’ve supported Sanders, and even though the primary has been over for a while now (realistically, anyway), I’m grateful he continues to run. He’s hardly a radical and is not without fault, especially on foreign policy (he voted against the Iraq war, but in support of a number of other military actions), but he is the best major democratic candidate in a long time, and the party would do well to follow his lead.

One thing about the Sanders campaign that has not been adequately covered by the pundit class is how young and diverse it is. People have focused so much on those pesky Bernie Bros that they fail to see that the Sanders/Clinton divide in this primary has been generational. Young people support Sanders, older voters go for Clinton. Please do not erase minorities from the Sanders coalition.

The older I get, the more of a leftist I become, and the more reluctant I am to claim the “liberal/progressive” label. I’ve been on the socialist end of the political spectrum for years now, and this election season has only pushed me further to the left. It’s not a bad place to be, really.